Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

The emails had a very strange tone- the characters wrote in length and in prose as if they knew they were going to be in a book. Perhaps this is true to the way email was written in 2000, but I had difficulty suspending my disbelief.

The relationship between the main characters progresses at a strange pace. In a week after first contact they are sending suggestive messages and making master-slave contracts, but then communication is cut off for a whole month? Given how desperate Agnes is said to be, this seems like too long a time.

Speaking of desperation, Agnes says she was suicidal, but there seem to be no signs of this other than the only time she says this - and that only to inform Zoe that 250 dollars have blown the feelings away.

The ending, moreover, does not feel like an ending at all. Perhaps the author wanted to make a point about how suddenly death arrives, or something, but it is not well done.

There is some nice horror in the later parts, but that isn't enough to make me like this book.